


a blue sun in the yellow sky

by Larrant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8789110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: The prisoner is a young man, younger than Ben, in a stiff outfit they probably scrounged from the mechanics. A drabble into something that was, and something that might have been (sometimes, universes bleed through).





	

 

 

"Get something out of him. Anything. Anything useful." A folder is passed across a table. Ben is given a wry look. "Just don't do anything too drastic. Kid's father is some higher up in their army."

Ben offers a shrug back. He has nothing else to do, not for that day, nor for that week, so he nods and walks down the steps to the holding cells. He does not think much of it, does not think much _on_ it.

There's a startling change of temperature underneath the surface, the holding cells put the air conditioning on full blast, and it gets colder by the minute as he heads down.

Behind the one-sided panel, the prisoner is a young man, younger than Ben, in a stiff outfit they probably scrounged from the mechanics. They don't have many prisoners, not ones they need to put on hold for more than a week. Usually they get to keep their uniform. This outfit is wrinkled at the edges, heavy and big and it makes the man (barely a boy, hollowed cheeks and jagged angles), seem little more than bones and pale, smooth skin. His spine straight as he sits on his cot, motionless, still. An air of regality that acts unperturbed to its surroundings.

The man doesn’t look up when Ben unlocks the door of the cell and steps in. Wryly, he thinks he won’t have any more success getting information out of this man than the rest had. Or that would be the case, if not for his _particular_ skillset.

“Hey,” he settles for saying- he's never been good with an interrogator's demeanour- and pulls up a chair across from Armitage Hux.

The man's gaze flickers, away from the wall and across to him and- a blink, Ben is jolted by the intensity of the pale eyes staring into his own. But the Imperial doesn’t say anything at all, and a moment passes, the frissure of unease fades. Ben begins.

 

* * *

 

The Imperial- Armitage Hux as Ben finds out from flipping through his file- simply does not respond to any of Ben’s questions.

He’s used to silence from prisoners, and so midway through while he’s still speaking, he lets his mind reach out, grasp at the mental shields Hux seems to keep up. He slips his way through with ease- after all, whatever training Hux has had, it’s clearly only been theoretical and he’s never had to deal with a genuine force user before- but as soon as he starts to rifle Hux jerks back, eyes wide and furious in real life.

“Stop it,” he snarls- the first words he’s said aloud ever since their meeting, and Ben frowns.

“Calm down,” he soothes, lacing a hint of compulsion into his voice- he hadn’t realized Hux would notice the intrusion- but Hux must have some immunity for it, some innate Force sensitivity in him because he doesn’t calm down and instead Ben finds himself fought from the constraints of Hux’s own mind. The man is angry and fierce, lashing out as far as he knows how- but whatever Hux is, he’s untrained, and Ben finds it almost child’s play to brush away the needling defenses.

Instead he finds himself impressions of an icy world, of red on black on white. He sees cold mornings and colder nights and ambition and a deep set yearning for approval- Ben frowns, concentrates and goes deeper because it’s not what he needs.

“-I said stop it-” the man is insistent, there’s a sharp, afraid edge to his voice as he gets up, slamming his hands on the wall- probably a hair’s breadth away from forgetting himself and tackling Ben.

He can hear something from upstairs, somebody probably coming down to check on them and suddenly Ben remembers Sacheen’s words- _don’t do anything that would cause a ruckus. This guy’s the son of some high up officer in their ranks_.

So he grits his teeth and lets go instead of going further, feeling guilty despite himself. He knows that if not for that reminder he might have dissected Hux’s memories regardless of the man’s refusal.

Hux is breathing heavily, flushed and angry and his hands are clenched so tightly that Ben’s almost afraid he’ll bruise himself.

“I won’t do that again,” Ben says aloud, and it’s the closest thing to an apology he’ll end up saying.

The warden comes down, and it takes a moment for Ben to explain that nothing’s wrong and he can leave.

Still, it’s barely twenty minutes later that Ben is mumbling some excuse and making his own retreat, unnerved and shaken despite himself. He can feel Hux’s eyes on him all the while, watching him leave.

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately after that first session, Hux seems to loosen up a little bit more. But only in a manner that would antagonize Ben. He still doesn’t speak- he hasn’t spoken since that incident, but there’s a certain sense of snideness that sometimes escapes from the man’s tight mental shields, disgust that bleeds through in the way he looks at Ben.

He finds himself ignored in reality, and feeling from the Force the sardonic contempt that exudes from the man’s aura.

It’s irritation that finally has him snap one day, forgetting his probing and standing from his chair. He watches Hux’s eyes widen and it’s with savage satisfaction that he grabs the man by the lapels of his ill-fitting jacket, dragging him up and intending on- well, he’s not sure what he’s intending on. But he must have underestimated the man, because Hux is suddenly twisting- there’s a spike of panic and fear and anger in the air and it takes a moment for Ben to recognize the source- and then Hux is slamming his head into Ben’s in an attempt to make him let go.

There’s a flash, a spark or a wave or a sudden explosion- and before he thinks about it Ben is reeling away, dropping Hux where he stands and _what is that-_

(for a moment reality is gone and in it’s place is _history_ , a memory of something deeper than the fabric of this universe, further reaching and so close it could be in the same breadth of space)

He jerks, and he sees Hux recoiling backwards.

“What- what did you do to me?” The man spits. He's wide-eyed, he sounds bewildered. There’s a cut forming on his lip, red welling at the tips of it, striking against his skin. The man doesn’t seem to notice, drawing his anger about himself as if an armour to hide the fear.

The spark lingers. There's a ghost of faded black and gray and a hand reaching beneath his mask and- Ben swallows. He's never worn a mask before. There’s maple on his tongue, a hint of mellow warmth and sweet fruit. And he hasn’t eaten anything today except for bread and a bantha steak carved from a spit.

“I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

He leaves after that. Hurriedly, without looking back at Hux. And then on his way back to his quarters- deviates from his usual route. He doesn't know why. He walks aimlessly instead, lost on his feet and lost in his thoughts. When he recovers himself he finds himself in a field filled with grass and wildflowers, a field that is quiet in the space between evening and night. He wonders if it's the Force that had led him here, wonders if it's possible to stumble on a place like this by accident.

There are blue flowers blooming by mounds of earth and grass, slim trees reaching up, willowy in the wind.

So Ben sits down and closes his eyes. He breathes in for five spaces, breathes out for five more. He meditates until the sound of crickets fill in the night air, until the cold has seeped through his clothing and into his skin. The answer he thinks he seeks is no longer there, no longer present. Finally, the cold sinks down into his bones and he shakes his head, stands up again.

On the way back to his quarters he passes the building with the holding cells, and pauses, just for a moment. There’s an urge in him, something inexplicable and quiet, and then he finds that he can ignore it, and he keeps on walking.

Ben goes back again the next day.

He doesn’t know why. Sacheen had told him just earlier in the mess hall, harried and probably with a deadline on the blueprints in her hands- ‘it’s fine, we don’t need his information that badly, it’s not worth it’.

But he finds himself in front of Hux anyway, a genuine apology on his lips this time.

“I’m sorry,” he says. The meaning is probably clear, and the shame bubbles in him again, something he tries to ignore.

(he notices, suddenly, how the man’s hair is a little messy, brushed back from his eyes- Ben had thought it should be styled, had the impression it was shorter, somehow, neater)

This time the questioning session is lackluster and slow- Hux is simply silent- and in the middle of it Ben finally gives up at the stony silence between them. He ventures into something else, starts to talk about the autumn that’s outside, the leaves falling to the ground. Useless, but he was never here for interrogation. He talks, and wonders if Hux is listening at all.

 

* * *

 

After the realization that Hux doesn’t have much in his cell at all, Ben comes back the next day with a book borrowed from his own private collection.

It’s an old book, with real pages and synth leather binding. Those came into fashion every now and again, though they had been out of fashion for the past hundred or so years. It’s from his grandmother, and he sets it on the table before he leaves, wrapped in cloth.

He doesn’t quite know if it’s an apology or an offering. Perhaps it’s both. And the next day he comes back he glances through the panel and finds Hux reading, mouth moving as he follows the text in his hands. Ben smiles faintly before he goes in. He’s a little grateful his offering has been accepted, and wonders if perhaps the man doesn’t completely hate him after all. By the end of the third day Hux has finished it and returns the book- so Ben comes back with a new one the next day.

He starts thinking of Hux as ‘Armitage’.

 

* * *

 

He wants to ask, sometimes. Just sometimes. _Do you feel the same_? _Do you understand_? But he does not know how Armitage would answer them, because even Ben does not know what he feels, does not understand anything of this.

But he wonders, all the same. _Do you know me as I know you_?

He never asks. But just once, one day in the still evening, in that cell that does not know time, he loses himself for a moment and doesn’t think.

“It’s not meant to be this way.” He tells Armitage, and does not know what he means. He knows that was he says must be true.

But the man looks at him as if he does not understand (or perhaps as if he understands and he understands something Ben does not). He does not respond, and when the silence becomes too heavy in the air, Ben looks away, stands up and leaves, footsteps quiet on the stone. At the door he turns back, his gaze falling back to Armitage, but the man is sitting on his cot, staring into nothing.

The cell door slides shut behind him, quiet and unheard in the emptiness.

 

* * *

 

Something always pulls Ben back, draws him again and again to the red haired Imperial who never looks him in the eye. It’s been a week and a half, but it feels- it feels like eternity.

He does most of the talking- if not all of the talking, speaks and rambles about topics he carefully steers away from the conflict or any sensitive information, he talks about his friends and his family, mentions the waterfall he found the other day and the birds that had been singing from crevices they lived inside. He does not ask Armitage any questions, and Armitage does not answer them.

Today there is nothing else for him to do, no mission for him to go on, so he sits there in that cell, and speaks until his voice is rough, until he has run out of words to say. He thinks that must be the end of it then, and almost makes to leave. It’s only then that Armitage looks up, looks him in the eye and Ben falls silent, falls still.

Armitage looks at him, for a long moment, and Ben has to resist the urge to press onto the man’s mind, find out what he’s thinking.

“Who are you?” Armitage asks eventually, cold and soft and expressionless.

It’s a strange question, but in all fairness Ben is the strange one, coming here without a reason, without a purpose or intent to question this man.

Ben opens his mouth, and for a moment he does not know what to say. What _is_ there to say- he does not even really know what Armitage means by that question.

(but there is something there for a moment, in the air between them, something that whispers and taunts and yet cannot be reached)

“Ben Solo,” he says, and whatever hesitation there was was only that of a second.

He watches Armitage’s eyes cloud for a moment, and then Ben can see it as his features shutter, as if his answer was not the one Armitage was looking for, as if there was something _else_ , something else that might have been and. Wasn’t.

“I see,” Armitage says, and again Ben thinks that Armitage knows something, knows something Ben does not.

He thinks he did something wrong, but he does not know what else there was to do.

 

* * *

 

_“It must be this way.”_

 

* * *

 

“An exchange’s been confirmed for the fourth. Day after tomorrow,” Sacheen tells him, throwing him a bone out of pity despite the fact she’s not meant to say anything at all, “Your Lieutenant’s gonna be with them.”

“He’s not mine,” Ben responds automatically, and realizes that he has two days. Suddenly there’s a cold stone in his belly, a sensation of losing all the air inside him. So Armitage was a Lieutenant, Ben thinks, grasping onto that thought, and even though he wants to think of something else he's only drawn to wonder how old the other must be. He thinks that despite anything the answer must still be ‘too young’.

“You go down there every day. What do you see in him anyway?” Sacheen changes the subject before Ben can answer.

 

* * *

 

The day comes, and when he explains the situation to Armitage, the redhead does not look surprised. Perhaps he had expected this, being the son of some important person in the Remnant, and perhaps Ben simply did not have the foresight to see.

They’ve brought him his uniform, his original one, washed and straightened and all clean cut edges. In his uniform Armitage looks profoundly different, profoundly changed- as if he is more machine than man, and anything of the quiet shadow in him is gone.

He thinks he knows what Armitage looks like, feels like, underneath the stiff Imperial uniform he’s wearing. The pale of his skin and the slim line of his shoulders. There’s a scar on his navel and freckles across his shoulders, running down his back. He knows it as if a childhood song half remembered, left unsung.

He realizes now, something he thinks Armitage has known since the beginning, that this is how it is meant to be.

The cuffs hang loose from his wrists when Ben clips them on. He’s careful not to touch the other man, and he thinks from how Armitage curls his hands- his nails have been trimmed, cut and manicured- that the Imperial is too.

Armitage is unsteady on his feet, wobbles for a moment- Ben realizes there’s a paleness to him, that he might have caught ill and still nobody (much less Ben) had even noticed. He wants to reach out to Hux again, to help him, but he reaches out a hand and the Imperial avoids his touch, a distance in his gaze that Ben cannot breach. So he doesn’t.

It’s only when they reach their destination that Armitage looks at Ben again. Looks at him properly and nods, the faintest incline of his head, imperceptible and quiet. A nod like they know each other, like they’ve known each other for more than the two weeks Ben has had- or maybe it’s just nothing at all. Ben returns it and something in Armitage relaxes, Ben thinks he sees something in the man release from its coiled tension.

And they are captor and captive again, jedi and imperial, enemy and enemy.

They reach the rendezvous, and Ben is relegated to the sidelines, looking bored and menacing with his lightsaber by his side. Half of his diplomatic use is only the Resistance's wish to have a Jedi around.

He finds his gaze drifting to Armitage anyway, barely more than half listening to the exchange between the Imperials and their party. The Lieutenant is still standing tall and straight, proud and unaffected by the goings-on. Ben admires it almost, as much as he can admire an Imperial.

When Armitage walks away, his back is straight and he does not look back. Ben watches until the man disappears into the shuttle, until the last of his shadow is gone, and then Ben lets his gaze fall away. His own shuttle arrives later that day. He leaves the planet with nothing more than the satchel on his shoulders and a holocron in his pocket.

Later, when he is on Coruscant, he spends the rest of the day at the old archive he used to visit, waits until it is dark outside to return back to the quarters he had rented. He shuts the door behind him and lies on the bed without bothering to change out of his clothes.

He can taste it again, the ghost of maple and fruit on his tongue.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I think that perhaps one day I'll make this into something longer than a drabble, perhaps I’ll even write an ending for it that soothes my cracked heart.


End file.
